AIBU to feel my life is together despite social media trends?

[Orangeducks]

My social media seems to be filled with reels/posts about 'normalising not having your life together'. They tend to be people stating they thought they'd have a house/car/children by now and the comments are filled with people agreeing with them and saying nobody has their life together, everyone is winging it.

I actually think my life is 'together ' and playing out how I expected ie. The job I always wanted, house, marriage, children. And most of my friends lives seems to be together to. I don't really feel like I'm winging it, I'm pretty Type A and like to control most aspects!
Obviously I completely get that at any moment this could all be upended at any point by illness, tragedy etc so these posts make me take a moment to be grateful that at this moment, I do have it together.
I just wonder how many people think they do or don't have their lives together.

When it says no one has their life together it’s usually qualified by ‘all the time’ in my experience, and I think the point being made is that we all have problems that crop up from time to time even if your life is generally a happy content one, a sick child, a parent passing away, work stress, job losses, friendship dramas, a washing machine that keeps breaking down, loads of paperwork you need to get done but don’t seem to have time,….life chucks shit your way every so often. Mine was a cancer diagnosis that’s upended my life.

YANBU. Some people absolutely thrive on chaos and love to show it. I do think there’s an obvious difference too between: not having it together because you’re caring for a sick relative and not having it together because you can’t remember World Book Day.

You've got to remember that every single bit of content on social media is there to generate clicks and views. It is the tabloid newspaper for the current age, and shouldn't be treated as anything more meaningful than that.

There's enough people who's life isn't as they expected for that sort of post to generate clicks and momentum. That doesn't mean it has any relevance to your own life, or that of your friends. It's really not worth pontificating about.

I just take issue with the notion that anyone who doesn't have a house or a child don't have their life together. I am currently virtually homeless. Been living on a holiday resort for the last nine months due to relationship breakdown and not being able to secure a permanent accommodation but I very much have my life together. I am functional adult who deals with issues when they arise. That's having your life together.

Social media is full of best ignored nonsense.

Don’t believe anything you see on social media!

You can train your algorithm to not show you this type of stuff. Unless you like it to feel
better about yourself, who knows.

I actually think my life is 'together ' and playing out how I expected ie. The job I always wanted, house, marriage, children. Think you have slightly misunderstood what 'having your life together' means.
You can have none of these things and still have your life together, you can all of these things and not have your life together.

They're talking about how they feel emotionally, not what they have.

Totally agree (and well done and good luck)

Sorry yes I totally agree, I wasn't meaning to imply that having these things mean I have it 'together'. I meant that I expected those things (or wanted is probably a better term) as a young adult and have them so in that sense its playing out as I expected.
I think I mean more that it seems.more common for people to not have whatever it is that they expected/wanted or to be 'winging it' on social media but in my life everyone I know seems to be generally in control. Again I hugely recognise that this is a very privileged position not yet impacted by any of the shitty things that can happen.
And 100% should take social media with a pinch of salt.

Firstly judging the normality or otherwise of your life based on social media is a sign you need to get out more and actually talk to people.

And secondly, while I don’t think you are wrong to have been focused and organised, your post comes off as a bit of a stealth brag. Nor sure what the point of this post is other than to be a bit smug about your life.

YABU to expect these kinds of social media posts to have any grounding in reality (or even any intention of reflecting reality). They are just things they think will generate clicks. Sometimes life goes as planned, sometimes it doesn't. It was ever thus.

i had childhood difficulties and neurodiversity and my life is never together and it has felt like a struggle to do even the basics that others so. Despite counselling and much effort on my part I feel like a square peg in a round hole and like I’m not made for this life. You might not think that if you knew me though

That's fair. I think I haven't been very articulate. I was just thinking that it seems 'normalised' to be winging it/ not 'together' in that most of my algorithmed feed shows this content to me (completely understand that is curated to me).
Wondering in the general population if people feel this applies to them or they feel like they had it together.

My life has been vastly improved by not using social media. None of it is real. None of it translates into the real world “out there”. I have never in the last 18 months of not using SM ever had someone try to start a conversation with me about a trend on social media.

and yes, I do realise that MN is social media, but it feels different because trends, likes, following, aggressive ads and doom scrolling isn’t really a thing.

edited to say what my point was rather than to just gloat: what you see on SM isn’t real, it doesn’t matter, and has only been created by someone to drive traffic by making us feel anxious about ourselves.

I think it is important to normalise, yes.
It's important to normalise not having everything turned out the way you planned when you were 14.
It's important to normalise not having children or not owning a property.
It's important to normalise not having a lavish lifestyle or having one, if that's your jam.
It's important to normalise not having a perfect body, whatever it currently deemed to be.
It's important to normalise being human and having moments where you don't feel in control. Whatever we may think, we are still winging it either all the time or some of the time. And, I will argue, it's often a better approach than desperately trying to control things that aren't actually in your control at all.

I don't think you can believe much that appears on social media. So much is said for effect, and some written by bots , and then displayed according to an algorithm. Maybe for some reason some groups of people currently consider it cool to be chaotic, or maybe resent anyone who is broadly living the life they want.

Social media is not real, people only put what they want people to see

But it would be perfectly possible to have everything you have and be whatever the opposite of ‘together’ is — falling apart?

The only two things to do with social media are to laugh at it or ignore it.

And in answer to your question, yes I think I have my life together.

absolutely this - and goddamn you should be proud of yourself. Resilience is the key to having life together even when things aren’t going as you might wish.